


Where the Heart Is

by Kacka



Series: Home Is... [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 08:17:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5778226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kacka/pseuds/Kacka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke and Bellamy are roommates pretending to be in a relationship so they can land their dream apartment. Bellamy panics when he realizes how closely he's treading the line between what's real and what's fake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where the Heart Is

**Author's Note:**

> Love this trope so much. Let me know what you think!

“I’m moving out,” Clarke announces, storming into the living room in her towel, hair dripping wet. Bellamy looks up from his laptop, more because of her words than the vehemence behind them. Clarke tends to speak with conviction no matter what the topic.

“Since when?” It’s surprising how disappointed he is. He’d thought it was going so well. Most of their friends had taken bets on when the two of them would have a complete blow up of a fight and which one of them would end up on Octavia’s couch (no matter whose fault the fight would be, Bellamy always secretly planned for it to be him). Part of him is disappointed that he’s apparently losing a great roommate, and the other part of him is irritated that at least some of his friends will profit off of this.

“Since the shower stopped spewing clean water,” Clarke says, shuddering. “It started coming out _brown_ , Bellamy. I could deal with it when it was just freezing cold and weaker than a water fountain, but I draw the line at water that’s brown.”

“I can get the super to look at it,” Bellamy frowns. It seems stupid for her to give up a good roommate situation over something so fixable.

“He never will,” Clarke says, throwing her hands up. “He’ll just tell us he’ll get around to it eventually just like he’s still getting around to fixing the elevator–”

“Four flights of stairs really isn’t that many.”

“–or the electricity–”

“I guess it would be nice to use the oven and microwave simultaneously without the power going out.”

“–or the buzzer. I’m not just tired of walking up and down four flights to let people in, Bell. I’m tired of living in a crappy apartment,” she sighs, sinking onto the couch next to him. He wants to complain about how bad it is for the material if she’s sitting on it dripping wet, but recognizes that now probably isn’t the time.

“Where are you going to go?”

“I don’t know. I figured if we don’t find something before the month is up, I can crash with Raven until we do. Octavia will probably take you, right?”

“Oh. You want me to move with you?”

“Of course.” She turns to him with a frown. “What, did you think I was going to just ditch you?”

“Maybe,” he grumbles. She laughs, a sound he hasn’t heard in a while. The whole Lexa fiasco really did a number on her. She hardly left her room for weeks. She’s better now, but there was a period of time when none of their friends really saw her, even Bellamy.

“I guess I shouldn’t have assumed. But we’re not in school anymore. We can afford a nicer place. Maybe even one that’s closer to either of our places of employment.”

It would be nice to have a shorter commute, Bellamy reckons. While it had never occurred to him to look for a place with fewer issues, or even to move _with_ Clarke, he can see a good suggestion when she makes one.

“Okay,” he says, shrugging. “Then let’s look for a new place.”

It’s strange, he sometimes thinks, that he and Clarke ended up roommates. They only met because Octavia’s boyfriend had gone to medical school with Clarke, and O’s roommate moved out before Octavia was really ready to move in with Lincoln. She and Clarke had roomed together for a year, during which time Bellamy had hardly seen either Clarke or Octavia. Clarke, in her last year of school before her residency, had lived more in the library than in the room she paid Octavia $400 a month for, and Bellamy had been preoccupied with studying for the bar exam. When O finally did decide to move into Lincoln’s apartment, she’d offered Bellamy to take over her lease. Clarke is in all ways an improvement over Murphy as a roommate, she’d argued, and she had been right.

He hadn’t known Clarke well, though she’d integrated herself somewhat into O’s friend group (which was his friend group too, by default). Hence, the bet-taking.

They’ve lived together now for two years, and Clarke is one of his best friends. Being roommates, they know a lot of intimate details about the other’s life, and are comfortable with minimal personal space. That means they’ve also gotten used to people assuming that they’re a couple. He’s not really thrown when it happens with one of the landlords showing them a space for rent.

“A lawyer and a doctor. What a power couple,” the older woman gushes, looking over their application. This is by far the best place they’ve looked at, and Bellamy is surprised by how much he wants this apartment now that he’s had time to contemplate how truly awful their current one is. He exchanges amused glances with Clarke and is about to correct the woman when she says, “It’s such a shame that you aren’t married, though. I always pictured renting this place to someone with a family, or looking to start one.”

Bellamy catches Clarke’s eye and they have a quick, silent conversation that they’ve perfected in the past couple of years. She nods slightly and he asks the landlady if he can speak with her privately in the hallway. She obliges, curious.

“Don’t tell Clarke,” he whispers, covert like it’s a state secret or something. “But I’ve actually got a ring. I’m planning to pop the question any day now–”

“Oh, that’s just wonderful!” The landlady exclaims, clasping her hands tightly. “Don’t worry, my lips are sealed.”

Bellamy is glad that the ruse pays off, at least. He and Clarke move in almost immediately.

“How long are you guys going to have to keep up the fake-couple thing?” Octavia asks, groaning as she hauls a box full of Bellamy’s books out of Lincoln’s truck.

“As long as we live here, I guess,” Bellamy says, attempting to trade his box of kitchenware for the one in Octavia’s arms. She hip-checks him and starts carrying her box into the building. “But we really only have to put on the act when we come into contact with our landlady, which shouldn’t be more than once a month to pay rent. And if we’re not both here, we don’t have to worry about it.”

“If it’s only Clarke, she’ll have to be wearing a ring,” Octavia points out.

“I got her one for eight dollars at the Shop Mart around the corner,” Bellamy says, shaking his head. “It’s disgustingly gaudy.”

“It looks like a knockoff of something a super bowl winner would wear,” Clarke confirms as they enter the apartment. The elevator ride up seemed to have convinced Octavia moving was a good idea; she remembers what it was like to live four stories up without one. “Are those your brother’s books? Stick them on the shelves in here. We want people to think we’re pretentious and well-read, so we’re hiding all mine in my room.”

Octavia snorts but does what she’s told, dropping the box and following Bellamy back downstairs.

“You bought her a ring?” She says when they’re alone in the elevator.

“Of course I did. I know better than to fake-propose without a ring.”

They have to put in very little effort, for the most part, to keep the illusion alive. The landlady accepts whatever grandiose story Clarke feeds her about the proposal, politely oohs and ahhs over the ring, and that’s that. They have their dream apartment, and Bellamy has a fake fiancee.

Life could be worse.

One night Clarke suggests getting a cat, but Bellamy scoffs.

“At least let me make my case first,” she says, tucking her feet underneath her.

“Have at it.”

“First of all, cats are just as cute as dogs–”

“Objection.”

“Overruled. They’re just as cute, but they require way less hands-on care. We get all of the cuddling–”

“Some of the cuddling.”

“–with way less pressure to rearrange our schedules than we would if we had a dog.”

“Cats are pointless, Clarke.”

“They’re smart. I know you like smart.”

“I don’t even know if we’re allowed to have a cat,” he points out, and the next thing he knows he’s on the phone with the landlady, asking whether they can have pets in their building. Clarke is cackling by the time he hangs up, due to the landlady’s excitement that a pet is a good first step to see if they’re ready for kids, and his flustered agreement.

“We have to get one now,” Clarke points out. “Or she’ll think we’re not serious.”

Bellamy isn’t sure that’s true, but he was pretty much always going to cave on the whole cat idea anyway. They get the cat (that Clarke names Lionel for reasons that escape Bellamy) and their landlady asks pointed questions about him every time she sees Bellamy from then on.

What really brings the entire situation to a head is when he forgets his checkbook at his office and he’s stuck making small talk with the landlady for a full twenty minutes until Clarke can get home with hers.

“How did you and Clarke meet?” She asks him. He tries to be as succinct as possible.

“Through my sister.”

“Oh, come on. There’s got to be more to the story than that. In my day, young men waxed poetic about their young ladies.”

Bellamy holds back a huff. Speaking well and adapting to difficult situations are skills he’s been honing his entire life, yet he’s somehow nervous about this.

“She and my sister roomed together for a while in college. Octavia introduced us, and we got to know each other slowly.” He shrugs. Everything he’s said so far has been true, which is nice. He doesn’t have a hugely fabricated backstory to remember. “It’s not an interesting story, but there it is.”

“Love at first sight?”

“Definitely not,” he chuckles. “We can both be pretty opinionated, and we clashed a lot at first. But over the years I’ve found that we work really well together. We kind of balance each other out. And she has this way about her that makes you think you can conquer the world if she’s on your side. It’s pretty–”

Blessedly, the door opens and cuts him off, and Clarke is there in a whirlwind of apologies for holding things up. The landlady turns her attentions to his roommate and he’s thankful because he kind of feels like he imagines he would after getting trampled by a herd of cattle. It’s a sudden realization, a flipping on of the light switch and finding that he’s in love with Clarke. Once he can see it, it’s plain as day.

Clarke has to go back to the hospital, so she walks the landlady back out and Bellamy calls his sister.

“Am I in love with Clarke?” He asks, in lieu of a greeting. There’s a silence on the line and he pictures her on the other end, shaking her head at him.

“Are you only realizing this now?” She asks, and yeah, she’s definitely facepalming.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Seriously, Bell. I thought you knew and you were just being a dumbass with the whole joint-pet-ownership, fake-marriage-scam thing.”

“Apparently I’m oblivious. And the cat wasn’t my idea.” Lionel senses that he’s being talked about and wanders over to see if there’s food. Bellamy begrudgingly pets him; he and the cat are still trying to figure out if they want to be friends or if they’re just going to be connected because they both love Clarke. “Should I tell her?”

Octavia is quiet for a minute, and then she sighs into the phone. It’s not an encouraging sound.

“Look, Bell, there are only a few ways this goes. One, you don’t tell her and she eventually finds somebody else and you get your heart broken. Two, you tell her and she rejects you and you get your heart broken. Or three, you tell her and she tells you she loves you back.”

“Any guesses which way it’ll go?”

“You’re closer with her than I am now,” Octavia points out. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

The problem is, now that he’s figured out that he’s in love with Clarke, he has to actually figure out what to say to her.

He ends up in the kitchen, because baking is his go-to coping mechanism when he’s trying to untangle his thoughts into coherent sentences. He’s made a career– and before that, a habit in his classes– out of speaking persuasively to large groups of people. The idea of trying to tell something so intensely personal to the one person whose opinion on the subject matters the most is, in short, freaking him out.

He’s got his classical music going with one batch of cupcakes already in the oven and is stirring another bowl of batter when Clarke gets home. His stomach flips unpleasantly. He’s been going around in his head for nearly an hour, trying to picture the conversation he’s about to have, and he’s gotten nowhere. When she pokes her head around the corner to see what he’s doing, he looks down at Lionel– who is winding his way over to her, the traitor– instead of her face.

“Uh oh,” she frowns, bending to pick up the cat. “What’s wrong?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re baking. You’re listening to classical music. This is like a flashing neon sign that you’re trying to work a problem out,” she says, scratching Lionel just right to make him purr. “If it was celebratory baking, you would’ve had NPR on and I would be making fun of you right now.”

Bellamy smiles despite his nerves, half pleased that she knows him so well and half because he didn’t really remember until he saw her that, yeah, she’s the girl he’s in love with but she’s also probably his best friend at this point. She knows him. If she doesn’t love him back, well, they can move past it. Probably. He might have to move out and it won’t be like it is now and his heart will definitely be a little bit broken, but their friendship will probably survive. And that’s not nothing.

“It kind of came out of left field,” he admits, setting the bowl down and starting to wipe up some of the mess he’s made. He gets a little aggressive with the flour when he’s lost in thought. “It’s not really a crisis, I just wasn’t prepared for it.”

“Want to run it by me?” She suggests, pouring herself a glass of wine and settling in at one of the tall chairs at the counter. The cat jumps up on the stool next to her and she just lets him, which is probably why Bellamy spends all day shooing him down from that exact spot.

“I don’t know,” he hedges. “I’m not sure I’m ready yet.”

“Oh, come on. I’m no lawyer, but it might help you to talk through it.”

“This isn’t really… that kind of thing.”

“Do you need me to be a juror?” She asks, straightening and rolling her shoulders back. He wants to smile again, because she’s so serious about helping even after a really long, early shift, but he also kind of wants to be sick. “Or a witness? Who’s your audience, here?”

“It’s– uh– it’s you, actually.”

“Me?” She brushes away a blonde curl that escaped from her braid and bites her lip. She must be nervous too. He knows it’s his fault; he’s being weird, but he doesn’t know how not to be.

“Yeah.”

“Are you going to tell me you’re a werewolf? Because I knew all the hair in the drain couldn’t be mine. I would be bald by now–”

“I’m in love with you,” he blurts out, and then winces. He definitely could have eased into it more if he’d really tried. He does have some measure of control over his brain-to-mouth filter, some finesse, some tact.

Clarke has fallen silent and his eyes lock with hers. They can usually read each other pretty well. He’s hoping that telepathic thing will work for him now because he’s pretty sure whatever he’s about to say is going to be a frantic, jumbled mess.

“The landlady was asking me today how we got together and I started making stuff up, but at some point I realized that what I was telling her wasn’t bullshit. I really do love you. You’re beautiful and you’re intense and you feel things really deeply and I just– you’re the best roommate I’ve ever had, and we have a cat and a lease that doesn’t run out for like eight months so I probably just screwed this up but I couldn’t not tell you–”

“Bellamy,” she laughs, cutting him off.

“You’re laughing at me? That’s so much worse than I was imagining,” he confesses, scrubbing a hand over his face. She bites her lip again, this time to rein in her giggles, and gets up to come over to him and wrap her arms around his waist. His arms come around her mostly out of reflex, because he’s not really sure what’s happening.

“I’m sorry. I’m not laughing _at_ you–”

“Well you’re definitely not laughing _with_ me–”

“I’m just relieved,” she says, pressing her lips to his jaw. “I love you too, you dork.”

“Really?” He asks, disbelieving. Octavia had listed it among the possible outcomes, but he hadn’t really been planning for this reality.

“Really.” She’s grinning up at him and his entire body feels like a live wire, buzzing because his anxiety has turned into excitement, and suddenly he starts to laugh too. He drops his head to her shoulder, exhaling when her fingers start combing through his hair. “I can’t believe I warranted a cupcake-level emergency,” she muses, sounding positively giddy.

“We didn’t have any blueberries or I would have made muffins.”

They stand there for another minute, just clinging to each other, when she says, “Hey Bell?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you kiss me now?”

He laughs but instead of answering, he draws her in and there’s really no way he can describe it because any thoughts he had, any ideas rattling around in his head, any words on the tip of his tongue just die away and everything is Clarke. And it’s bliss.

“I’d say I want to take this slow,” she murmurs against his lips. “But we’ve eaten dinner together, like, a million times.”

“And we already live together,” he points out, letting her back them up against the cabinets.

“If I move into your room, I can turn mine into an art studio,” she responds, and this is where he breaks down, laughing against her skin.

“I barely know my name right now,” he says, nipping lightly at her collar bone. “Stop thinking so hard.”

“Make me,” she says, and, well, he’s never been able to resist a challenge.

As it turns out, one of the perks of dating your roommate is not having to be discreet. They can be as loud as they want, and the next day being Saturday, Bellamy finds that he’s not motivated at all to get dressed. Clarke kicks him out of bed around noon to grab them something to eat and when he comes back with a handful of cupcakes she’s shrugged on one of his flannel shirts and is scrolling through his Netflix queue.

“I am so attracted to you right now,” he grins, settling back in beside her.

“I only want you for your cupcakes,” she responds without missing a beat and snuggles into his side.

“When did it start for you?” He asks, stroking her arm. He gets to touch her as much as he wants now. It’s pretty great. “I mean, I only realized yesterday, but I’m assuming you’re more emotionally mature and self-aware than I am.”

“That’s a strong assumption,” she says, absently crossing one ankle over his. “I think it probably started around the first time I saw you shirtless–”

“Sorry. I try to only use my powers for good.”

“–but I didn’t realize it until you tried to call and correct the crossword puzzle people at the paper on their spelling.”

“Seriously?” It’s not one of his most embarrassing moments, but it’s not particularly memorable either. Plus, it was several months past by now. He really wishes she’d said something earlier.

“Yep. That’s when I knew. You’re passionate and kind of lame, and you interrupt me all the time–”

“Wow, why do you love me again?”

“The cupcakes,” she reminds him, climbing back onto his lap. “And, you know, the sex.”

“Let me get this straight,” he grins. “You love me because I’m good in the kitchen and the bedroom? I knew I was doing something right.”

“Yep,” she says, pressing her lips to his, soft and sweet. “Best roommate ever.”


End file.
